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September 30, 2008

Mister Strike is a 1970 book about Juan Marichal. Perhaps some day, another of the same title will be written about Tim Lincecum. The 24-year old sophomore capped off an amazing season on Sunday, beating the Dodgers and putting the final touches on his rock solid case for Cy Young.

Earlier this month, I wanted to write some things about Lincecum and his Cy Young chances, but I was too damn superstitious. MLB's sparse coverage of a couple of his starts had me grumbling and worried that the lack of attention would translate into less votes for the coveted award. After his start where he picked up his 15th win, and lowered his league leading ERA to 2.43, I ventured over to mlb.com to see how they were reporting it. There was nothing on the home page, not even a link.

Next start, Tim the Enchanter ran his record to 16-3 and lowered his ERA even further to 2.54 in the Giants 6 to 2 win over Arizona. Once again, I checked out mlb.com. After seeing nothing on the front page, I clicked on All Headlines. Down at the 7th item was DBacks Can't Solve Giants Ace. There was a second Headline but the article did not say anything about his Cy Young case.

Some of Lincecum's achievements are getting attention. I culled these from various sites.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Lincecum's the fourth pitcher with a record 13 games above .500 for a team that finished at least 13 games below .500. The others were Cy Young Award-winning Steve Carlton (27-10 for the 1972 Phillies, who finished 59-97) and two pitchers who preceded the Cy Young era: Eddie Rommell (27-13 with the 1922 Athletics, who finished 65-89) and Dazzy Vance (22-9 for the 1925 Brooklyn Dodgers, who were 68-85).

Lincecum struck out 13 batters to raise his league-leading total to 265 in the Giants' win over the Dodgers. Since 1900, only three other pitchers had as many strikeouts in their sophomore season as Lincecum: Vida Blue (301 for the 1971 Athletics), Frank Tanana (269 for the 1975 Angels) and Dwight Gooden (268 for the 1985 Mets).

Lincecum had the most strikeouts in the majors since Randy Johnson's 290 in 2004 for Arizona. Johan Santana, then with Minnesota, had 265 that year.

Lincecum became the first pitcher in franchise history to lead the majors in strikeouts for a single season.

September 29, 2008

Six Stars of the Northern CrossIn mourning for their sisters' lossIn a final flash of gloryNevermore to grace the night....

- Prolouge, Cygnus X-1, Book One - The Voyage, Music by Geely Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart, Lyrics by Peart

The Kojo Nnamdi Show airs every weekday at noon here in the nation's capital. The popular, two-hours long radio program covers a wide-array of topics, including politics, computer and technology issues and social trends. This past Wednesday Kojo's guest in the second hour was Brian Greene, a Professor of Physics and Mathematics at Columbia University and an award-winning author with a new book titled Icarus at the Edge of Time.

When I heard the host say the book was about "a 14-year old boy who takes a spaceship to the edge of a black hole," I experienced an eyes-wide, mouth-agape moment. In the mid-70s, I was fast becoming a big-time RUSH fan. On their 1977 album, A Farewell to Kings, the band wrote what is still one of my favorite songs, the spine-tingling Cygnus X-1. It, too, is about a spaceship's perilous journey towards a black hole.

Drummer and lyricist Neil Peart had read an article on the subject and was inspired to pen the lyrics. When the album came out, I remember being fascinated by what he had written - a final flash of glory, soaring through the Astral Door, X-ray is her siren song. Awash with curiosity, I high-tailed it to the library to learn more about black holes. Several years later, as a student, I gave a presentation on them in a college class (Everything went well until I tried explaining what an accretion disk is).

And now, once again, the wondering motivated me. Wanting to know if Professor Greene knew about RUSH's song, I picked up my cell phone and called in (Energizing Science with Brian Greene, Wednesday, Sep 24). 13 minutes into the show, I heard Kojo say,

On to Jay in Alexandria, VA, go ahead Jay, you're on the air.

Yes, Kojo, I wanted to ask the author if he's aware of a song, it was written in the late 70s by the rock group RUSH, it's called Cygnus X-1, and it talks about a spaceship and the encounter with a black hole.

Much to my disappointment, Greene said he isn't aware of the song. But, of course, he knew that "Cygnus was certainly the place where a black hole was really first identified and convincingly shown to be a black hole."

With time always short on Kojo's show, I figured that would be the end of our conversation. The Professor (a nickname once given to Peart), however, surprised me by asking me "to sing a few bars." Kojo echoed the request (a distinct honor mind you!).

I declined, and those familiar with the song know why. Cygnus X-1 is a unique musical creation, with Geddy Lee capturing the fear of being "swallowed by a fearsome force" in a high-pitched vocalized way that few others would even dare to try.

It had been a while since I listened to this brilliant song, so when I got home from work, I hopped on the computer, pulled out A Farewell to Kings, and listened to Cygnus with great joy. If you listen it, and it's your first time, I suggest you prepare yourself for the experience. It's a song that begs to be cranked loud, although be careful of several sudden and jolting increases in sound. You'll also be induced into some serious hammering of your air guitar and head-banging.

And take it from someone who knows. Such behavior, seen for the first time by a spouse or a significant other, may prompt them to think you have gone off the deep end…

September 28, 2008

It's late September in the nation's capital. For bibliophiles in the area, that means heading to The Mall for the event of the season, the annual National Book Festival.

For the past so many years, Roberta and I just winged it, arriving after lunch and then looking at the schedule. This approach translated to each of us seeing maybe just one of our favorite authors and two or three others we were less interested in.

This time we decided we should each see who we wanted to see and plan ahead of time. Of course, even with that, you're always at the mercy of the schedules. Having read his memoirs recently, I wanted to see Bob Schieffer. But he was on tap for later in the afternoon, which isn't my first choice.

Fortunately, this year's festival offered a very good selection of authors. Or I should say, the ones listed had great appeal for my tastes. I also got lucky in that my other top choices were back to back and in the same pavilion.

My first pick was Daniel Schorr. What an incredible journalist he is. One of the last of the vaunted "Murrow's Boys" (second generation) still active in the business, this 92-year old son of Russian immigrants is still analyzing news and can be heard on National Public Radio.

The National Book Festival draws in book lovers young and old, and from all around the region (One man said he comes every year from Pennsylvania. The popularity of the event is such that I think the organizers, who have done a good job, need to re-think their approach. They need to have more chairs and more room for one thing, and they need offer more food courts.

They also need to monitor the question askers better. The quality of the questions from the audience is good but they need to do something about "The Ramblers." Readers of this blog know that is a pet peeve of mine, the person who goes on and on and on before getting to the actual question. Not that I lose sleep over it, but it is amazing to me how it always happens at least once, not matter where the author event takes place.

Things were going well in this regard yesterday, until a middle-aged man stepped up the microphone. I think he may have set the all-time record. On and on he went, blah, blah, blah, seemingly oblivious to the fact that although Mr. Schorr still displays a sharp mind, he would appreciate brevity. This guy went on for so long that the crowd starting booing him. One man behind me, my new hero, yelled "Sit Down!!"

The irony in these situations is that once the question is asked, you say to yourself, the pre-amble added nothing to the question. A little bit is ok, but please folks, brevity is beauty in these situations.

Anyway, it was a pleasure to see Schorr. After his introduction, he was given a rousing ovation, with some standing up to applaud. Dressed in a black blazer and sitting in a chair, he spoke for about 10 minutes and then answered questions.

One of his answers stood out as both remarkable and funny. Asked to talk about a favorite memorable experience, Schorr reminisced about how President Nixon had put him on his enemy's list. When that fact was revealed in the Watergate Hearings, the White House came up with the saving face story that the investigation was done because they were going to offer Schorr a job. Twenty years later, Schorr was at a dinner with Nixon. When he brought the investigation up to the President, Nixon replied, "I damn near hired you once." That drew a big roar of laughter from the audience.

Schorr's latest book is Come to Think Of It. I'm not a big fan of collections, so I started reading Staying Tuned, his memoirs. In reading it, one gains a greater appreciation of what journalists have to put up with. Schorr's first full assignment was in Moscow. He learned about it through second hand sources and received no training. The uncertainty over how long the job would last meant he had to leave his household affairs in Washington up in the air. Censors cut out the meat of his reports and he was followed by the KGB. His budget was bare-bone and he had to cook his own meals in a small apartment.

Schorr also had to deal with other frustrations. When Khrushchev unexpectedly denounced Stalin, a great scoop in the making, his report back to CBS was nixed. In 1957, he worked to have the Soviet leader appear on CBS's Face the Nation. The television first made headlines back in the U.S., but President Eisenhower downplayed the historic interview, calling it an attempt by the network to improve its own commercial standing. Schorr also had to delay his satisfaction. The interview took 24 hours to arrive in New York.

Schorr also felt terrible when lack of experience in the beginning led to a Russian being sent to exile for ten years.

The other thing about journalists is that when they sit down and write about themselves, they have to face the fact that they must be as critical and judgmental of themselves as they are of the people they covered. Schorr does this better than anyone I have seen, at one point calling himself a coward for not wanting to go to war.

Covering a war can help launch a career for a correspondent, but that assignment can also come at a heavy cost. That is what happened to the next author to take the temporary, wooden stage. Kimberly Dozier, who like Schorr, includes award-winning correspondent on her resume, talked about her book, Breathing the Fire. I've started reading it and it's a can't put down. A correspondent covering the war in Iraq, she was critically wounded by a car bomb in 2006. Losing a lot of blood, she came very close to dying that Memorial Day in Baghdad. The blast killed the Army Captain she was working with that day, his Iraqi translator, and her two crewmembers.

After the talks, Roberta and I rendezvoused and walked over to the Museum of Natural History where we hoped to take in a peek at the new Ocean Hall. Created to "show the ocean as a global system that is essential to all life on Earth," the new exhibit opened to the public yesterday. Seeing the long line out the door prompted us to say, "Let's return on a cold winter's day."

This year's National Book Festival was one of our favorites. For me, a theme of "Journalists Serve Too" emerged. I love and hate the industry, but I'm willing to say I admire them a whole lot.

Fiction writers make more money and fame than their non-fiction counterparts. And they send us to places we could never go. Journalists, however, go and spend significant amounts of time at faraway places. I went through my fiction reading years, but now I like reading about the actual. Journalists tell incredible stories too, and we're the better for it.

September 26, 2008

The MLB schedules are out early as promised and the news in Washington is a mixed bag. The Nationals will see what Red Sox Nation is all about when Boston comes to town in June (One of my clients, who is a Red Sox fan, said she has to be there!)

On the other hand, the Nats get the Rodney Dangerfield Award, picked to start and end the season on the road.

I also checked to see if Washington would be at home during the SABR convention. It's my understanding that SABR had hoped to make a special request so the schedule could be arranged accordingly. Either way, the coin toss came up tails (I think Selig has a special coin for Washington with a needle on both sides...). The team will be away during the SABR Convention, July 30 - August 2.

That's certainly disappointing news for convention goers, as attending a game at the host city is a long-standing tradition. But in order to get a reduced rate at the JW Marriot on Pennsylvania Avenue, which provides a desirable, downtown location in the revitalized Penn Quarter, the Bob Davids Chapter had to commit before the schedule was out.

And there is a silver lining. With the Nats on the road, this will allow attendees to take in a guided tour of Nationals Park. We took it in June and they do a very good job. In particular, you get to see all the memorabilia placed in the non-public areas.

Also, if you don't mind the trek up I-95 to Baltimore, about 40 minutes on Saturdays and a bit more for Fridays, you have the option of seeing the Orioles take on the Red Sox that weekend at Camden Yards.

Looking to future locales, SABR President Dick Beverage announced the convention will be held in Atlanta in 2010. That will mark the first time in the Deep South.

September 24, 2008

The National Science Foundation announced today a series of never before conducted experiments involving the Washington Nationals. As part of Fan Appreciation Day on Thursday, the heads of the organization's leadership - owner Ted Lerner, President Stan Kasten and General Manager Jim Bowden, will be smashed and then examined.

Sitting in his office overlooking the Potomac River, Stan Pat, Director of Cultural Studies at the Arlington-based institute, explained.

"We're taking a cue from the Hadron Collider," he said. "It smashes together particles smaller than atoms to break them down into their constituent parts. The hope is to find missing particles which are thought to exist but have never been observed."

Pat then related those ideas to the Nationals. "As everyone knows, the Nationals management is making terrible decisions. Our working group hopes to discover what thought processes are going on inside their heads."

The experiments could also include the fans.

"We have observed that major league baseball does not react well with this region. The theory is that there's some kind of antimatter here in this region that keeps fans away."

Pat said the group also discussed black holes, which are "a theoretical region of space which has such a powerful gravitational field that nothing can escape its pull, not even light."

"The return of MLB and the new ballpark was supposed to produce larger crowds at the games," he said. "Just as the Hadron experiment hopes to learn about black holes, our scientists hope to discover something similar which might be swallowing up fans."

September 22, 2008

In six short weeks, our country will elect its 44th President. For some, that's no big deal. Regardless of the outcome, they'll keep sending CNN's Jack Cafferty their bitch and moan e-mails.

For others, a lot is at stake. One such person is Markos Moulitsas. For the last seven years, he has invested a lot of time, talent and energy into getting who he wants in the White House and the Capitol. In 2002, after serving his country in the U.S. Army during the Gulf War, he launched Daily Kos. His progressive blog is the new McDonalds. Millions and millions served.

Moulitsas, who co-authored Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics, has also written a new book titled Taking on the System, Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era. The timing was perfect for me, coming on the heels of reading Lowell Feld and Nate Wilcox's excellent, Netroots Rising: How a Citizen Army of Bloggers and Online Activists Is Changing American Politics. Their book piqued my interest in the netroots movement and as someone steeped in old school, I felt a strong need to learn more about the new ways.

Those who want to make a difference have bypassed the gatekeepers and turned to blogging, podcasts, social networking, Youtube and text messaging. I knew those technologies were changing things and that blogs are more and more influentia. But what I did not know was the stories behind the movement. As I read each story, I was puzzled why I had not heard more about them. It's like there are parallel universes, one on the web and one in the traditional media.

Realizing that Blitzer, Matthews, and Stephanopoulos can only take the discussions so far, I've begun to read Daily Kos. The tones can get a little heavy for my tastes, but it's easy to understand their frustrations. As Kos points out, the gatekeepers - editors, producers, party hacks, establishment elite, music label executives - ignored the grassroots movement. The netroots were also angry at their own party. In response, they built a on-line network that fostered small-dollar contributions.

As someone who is middle-aged, and recently read and thoroughly enjoyed new books by Bob Schieffer (This Just In) and Roger Mudd (The Place to Be), and as someone who counts himself among the 7% (yikes!!) who still watches the Evening News (less and less though), I was concerned I would feel like an outsider towards the movement. But as a netizen, I felt a certain kinship with them. And reading this book, which explains how ordinary citizens can make a difference, made me realize I have been apathetic too. Knowledge is good, action is better.

When I was in Basic Training in the Air Force, my squadron's motto was Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way. An updated version might be -- Lead, Follow or Create Another Way.

September 10, 2008

Congratulations to Google and The Kojo Nnamdi Show, both celebrating their 10th anniversary this week. Don't know where we would be without them, especially the folks from Mountain View.

Google has recently announced it is partnering with ProQuest and Heritage, two online archiving companies. The project will offer digitally archived pages of old newspapers via Google News Archive. (Hat tip to SABR's Rod Nelson).